Ten experts will work together to create a National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy in Chile. The Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation chose the members of the committee to contribute their experience in technology, ethical considerations, the public policy of data uses, and economic development related to technology.
Minister Andrés Couve confirmed the ten experts to prepare the document that will be presented to the government in April 2020.
President Sebastián Piñera entrusted the Ministry of Science with the work of promoting an action plan and an Artificial Intelligence policy that contributes to Chile successfully inserting itself in the technological revolution. The objective is to create an ecosystem that allows developing in the country innovations applicable in fields such as health, education, and production.
“There are more than 27 countries that have or are developing artificial intelligence strategies in the world. Because it is an emerging and widely used technology, these plans are very different and reflect different approaches. Some of them favor the development of tools, while others have focused on regulatory and data protection areas,” explained Minister Couve.
AI experts will offer a diagnosis of Chile’s situation in artificial intelligence along with proposals in the three areas of the work plan led by the Ministry of Science: “What we will do as a government is to work on three complementary axes of this work plan which are enabling factors, development and adoption of artificial intelligence and a final area linked to ethics, standards, safety, and regulation of the use of these technologies. The selection of the panel of experts reflects this vision as each member has expertise in one or more of these issues from the world of academia, the public world, business, and civil society,” said Couve.
Committee of Experts in Artificial Intelligence
In addition to their professional merits, gender equity considerations were taken by achieving a committee with four women and six men.
The committee is made up of people with in-depth technical knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, such as considerations of ethics, public policy, economic development, use of data, among others. Therefore, the committee represents a plural vision of technology.
The committee is made up of people with in-depth technical and scientific knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, such as Dr. César Hidalgo of the University of Toulouse, who has led Collective Learning groups and serves as an advisor to the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute and as Honorary Professor of the University of Manchester. Also present is the engineer Marcelo Arenas, who has studied the management system and data uses. Andrea Rodríguez-Tastets of the Universidad de Concepción has worked on spatial databases and is currently Vice Chancellor for Research and Development and Professor of the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science of the Universidad de Concepción. Dr. Néstor Becerra Yoma, professor at the University of Chile, created the Voice Processing and Transmission Laboratory where he investigates topics on artificial intelligence, human-robot integration, among others. Álvaro Soto is a Doctor of Computer Science at the University of Carnegie Mellon. He is an associate professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (ialab).
María “Cuky” Pérez brings her practical experience in the private sector to the committee. She served as an academic at Stanford University but now works at Airbnb as a data scientist. She is currently data science manager of a team of 15 data scientists and is one of the leaders of the platform team at Airbnb.
The committee is also made up of people with extensive experience in public administration, such as María Paz Hermosilla of the Adolfo Ibáñez University. She is the founder and director of the GobLab UAI, an open innovation laboratory at the Adolfo Ibáñez University School of Government and has specialized in public innovation.
Aisén Etcheverry combines experience in the public and private sectors. She is executive director of CONICYT but was previously public policy manager for Amazon for Latin America. She has been commissioned for the creation of the Innovation and Development Agency.
As a representative of civil society, there is the lawyer Alberto Cerda. Alberto is currently an officer of the International Technology and Society Program of the Ford Foundation and teaches at the Law School of the University of Chile. He was the legal advisor to the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Economy on technology and regulation issues; In addition to co-founder and former international director of the NGO Digital Rights.
The economic vision of the document will be provided by Raphael Bergoeing of the National Productivity Commission. Bergoeing is an economist at the University of Chile and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota. He is currently working as an academic in the Department of Economics of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the Diego Portales University and president of the National Productivity Commission.